India, Oct. 6 -- At a meeting in Srinagar on Tuesday, a delegation carrying years of unresolved forest-rights claims arrived at the office of Jammu & Kashmir Assembly Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather with a simple demand: enforce the Forest Rights Act.

The delegation, led by Raja Muzaffar Bhat, chairman of the Jammu & Kashmir Climate Action Group, and Dileep Gode, national convener of the National Alliance on Community Forest Resources & Minor Forest Produce, told Rather that thousands of claims filed over the past four to five years remain undecided in Jammu & Kashmir.

The Forest Rights Act provides a legal framework for Individual Forest Rights, Community Forest Rights and governance of minor forest produce for communities that depend on fo...